


Gary and Celeste, what do they know about anything?

by seren_ccd



Category: Out of Sight (1998)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seren_ccd/pseuds/seren_ccd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if they did take a time out?  Karen Sisco and Jack Foley throughout the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gary and Celeste, what do they know about anything?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bayloriffic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayloriffic/gifts).



> Spoilers for The China Syndrome (1979 film). I hope you enjoy!

**Iowa**

Karen has just raised a cup of coffee to her lips when she hears: “The best scene in _The China Syndrome_ is that moment where Jane Fonda gives that speech at the end of the movie after Jack Lemmon’s been shot in the back and she just tells it like it is.”

She lowers the cup and looks Jack Foley in the eyes as he stands beside her table in a diner in the middle of nowhere. Then she blinks and says, “I liked the part where she told Michael Douglas to stop jerking her around and let her in on the story for God’s sake.”

He smiles that small smile, that easy curve upwards of his lips that always forecasts interesting things.

“Didn’t catch your name,” Karen continues, tilting her head. “Gary, was it?”

He sits down and takes a sip of her coffee.

**Colorado**

“Oh, shit,” Buddy says, ducking his head, his eyes wide on the mirror behind the bartender.

“Karen just walk in?” Jack asks, not moving at all except to finish his scotch.

Buddy glares at him. “Now how the hell did you know it was her?”

Jack shrugs. “Lucky guess.”

“Lucky guess, my ass, you planned this.” He leans towards Jack. “You _both_ planned this.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Buddy,” Jack says throwing a few bills on the bar. “See you in the morning.”

“You’re crazy, man,” Buddy says shaking his head. “Certifiable.”

Jack just chuckles.

Later, after one drink and several breathless moments, Jack says to Karen, “Buddy says I’m crazy.”

“Buddy’s a smart man,” she says, her voice muffled from where her head rests on his chest.

“Hey, if I’m crazy, then so are you,” he says, running his hand along the curve of her shoulder blade.

“I know,” she says and for a moment, Jack wonders just what the hell he’s doing, but then she lifts her head and smiles at him and leans in and he stops thinking.

He ignores Buddy’s glances the next day, too.

**Florida**

“No,” she says staring at him just after he gets into her empty elevator in a mall in Boca Raton. “You have to leave. This is too close to my jurisdiction, Jack.”

“What happened to Gary?” he says, trying hard to look stoic.

“Gary doesn’t exist here,” she says, knowing that she definitely looks stoic (she’d practiced in front of a mirror, she knew this day would come and she’s proud that her hands don’t shake).

“He doesn’t?” he asks, a corner of his mouth curving up.

Karen shakes her head. “Not in Florida.”

The elevator dings and Karen steps out leaving Jack behind. Her hands still don’t shake and she doesn’t look back.

**Nebraska**

He can’t get over how much they laugh when they’re together. Because they do. They laugh. Over other people in the hotel bar, over the ineptitude of people in both their professions, over a story she tells him about her dad, or about how Buddy was tricked into going to a church meeting by his sister.

She laughs when his mouth travels down the length of her throat and across her collarbone. Then it’s his turn when her hands find that spot on the outside of his hip and he shouts with laughter when she massages the muscle there and then gives him a wicked look when she spots the scar that her bullet left on him.

Jack wonders what he’d be doing if he couldn’t laugh with her.

**New York**

They didn’t plan this one; but Karen’s not going to argue with seven hour layovers due to adverse weather conditions. She’s also not going to ask where he’s off to.

“Did you ever see _Brief Encounter_?” Karen asks as she eats her warm pretzel outside of Penn Station, ignoring the heavy snow around them.

He smirks. “Of course. People should use trains more often. They’re more romantic than planes.”

“What about _Casablanca_?” she asks. “That last scene’s pretty romantic.”

“You think so?” he asks around his cup of coffee.

“Well, maybe not romantic,” she amends. “More like realistic.”

He looks at her and the weight of it all hits her and the pretzel churns in her stomach.

“You know how this is going to end, Celeste,” he says softly.

“I know, Gary,” she tells him. She throws away the rest of her pretzel.


End file.
